AI: It was a very active and engaging and free way of learning, in some ways

I’ve been experimenting with AI-generated articles. I’m using an application called Story AI. You enter the first 40 words, and the AI does the rest. I heard about this application from Stephen Downes’ Online Daily newsletter.

For this experiment, I entered the first couple of paragraphs of my article 10 ways to encourage reluctant teachers to use education technology. Here’s the result. Please don’t email me to say the artificially-generated story is better than my original, or I’ll cry! Seriously though, does it pass muster?

I used the same beginning twice. The first result was illiterate nonsense. Even this one isn’t great in my opinion. So I don’t think I need to worry about my writing commissions drying up yet.

Perhaps, though, one could use Story AI to generate a story as a means of getting new ideas.

Anyway, see what you think. Here it is:

I've been writing about the Atari room in my newsletter, Digital Education. That was a room I set up and filled with Atari ST computers. These were fast, had a graphical user interface, and lots of great and low-cost or even free software, at a time when the standard computers used in schools were slow, had a text interface or a clunky GUI, and had mainly expensive software. One of my briefs in the school was to encourage other teachers to use technology in their lessons. In the words of the headteacher at my interview, in response to my question: "What would you regard as my success criteria?": "I want to see teachers banging on the doors of the computer room demanding to be let in." I didn't quite manage that, but I did manage to increase the usage of the computing facilities quite significantly, and the Atari room played no small part. So here are the lessons from that period which I am pretty sure could be generally applied today:

The A.I. continued

(These are all from two of my emails to Mr. Green during the period of the school being run by the National Association of Undergrads.)"

DNA of a computer lab: "I spent a lot of time during the 1980s working on my own laptop computer as I went about my school day. I'd sit in my chair going through the files I'd created using the laptop, with the students taking notes and helping. It was a very active and engaging and free way of learning, in some ways." ("Flexible computing: the history of an era", Alan N. Green, "Technology and the Classroom: From the invention of the microcomputer to an American-style educational system", Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002).

"The idea for a classroom technology centre was first suggested by the head teacher at my former school. In the end, the idea was developed and implemented in three ways. One by an independent group of parents and teachers working together. Two were the product of an official partnership between Cambridge University and the Department of Computer Science, who provided the IT hardware, and the National Association of Undergrads who offered funding for the work. I worked with them on one of the first projects in Cambridge, and they provided invaluable input as we worked to implement the project. The third effort involved Cambridge University and a number of other organisations – the BBC, a trade publication, the government, the National Archives, and others – who provided financial support." ("Flexible computing: the history of an era", Alan N. Green, "Technology and the Classroom: From the invention of the microcomputer to an American-style educational system", Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002).

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